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Friday, June 8, 2012

Thank You Ridley Scott

Last evening (as I type), I alluded on IRC to the fact that I was going to watch Prometheus, Ridley Scott's latest opus. I was, I confess, somewhat trepidant, and expressed this in a way that led me to wonder: can one legitimately use the phrase "I expect to be disappointed"?

Certainly one can expect the movie to be bad; but if one's expectation turns out to be correct, can one truly claim to be disappointed?

It's also possible that one's expectations are confounded, and that the movie turns out to be great. Should one call this disappointement, inasmuch as one isn't as good a predictor of movie quality as one hoped?

It's with these conundra rattling around in my head that I headed of to the Savoy.

Two hours later, Ridley Scott had answered all my questions.

Yes, I could expect to be disappointed. Scott made sure that my casual sentence - one that could so easily be assumed to be illogical - was perfectly valid.

I wasn't expecting much. I got much, much less than I was expecting.

Friends: if you're going to see Prometheus, have no worries on this score. If you to are afraid of muttering phrases such as "expecting to be disappointed", you can rest assured that however bad you think this film is going to be, it's actually much, much worse. If you're expecting it to be vacuous nonsense masquerading as depth, then you'll be disappointed to find that there's also many a scene that makes no sense whatsoever. If you're expecting that too, you'll be disappointed by the thoroughly idiotic dialogue. And so on, ad infinitum.

So as you head off to the cinema, walk with your head held high and with the full knowledge that Ridley Scott has your back. He's gone out of his way to make a film that's so risible that you can wander into any cinema with your head held high and say in a loud, steady voice "I expect to be disappointed."

What a guy.